Violence In The Vocabulary
Full disclosure: While this post (from @sarah_atkinterinwa) is probably more readily usable by college coaches of male athletes, it SHOULD be deployed at High School and Middle School as well.
Why do I say that? Because I’ve coached both levels AND, maybe more importantly, because I’ve raised sons (19 and 14 years old) and I know exposure to this belief system regarding sexual performance and intimacy bled into their lives at those earlier ages. The longer the time span between it being imbedded and the moment we try to get them extract and unlearn it, the harder the process becomes.
You hear this language not only in terms of ways to have sex with a woman, but ALSO in how we are going to emerge victorious in a game. Whether it be football, basketball, baseball or soccer, you hear coaches and player alike demand they “dominate,” “destroy,” or “belt to ass” opponents.
Listen, I’m competitive as hell. I want to win games and win games by a lot of points. But, we’ve taken strides in the past two years to change the language we use in our spaces while still maintaining a relentless quest for victory.
We don’t say “sniper” anymore when someone trips over themselves. We say “timber”. We don’t say “Corner Kill” anymore when we want to iso a bad defender off the dribble. We say “Corner Brunson”. I don’t tell my player to “put our foot on their neck.” I say “End the game. Here and now.”
These felt awkard to say at first, and I’ve definitely slipped up and reverted at times. But the fact we told our players the how and why of the change in verbiage meant they went on the unlearning journey with us. That shared journey is another connection point in the program, and we know authentic connection drives change.
Now, whether you can address the language above about sexual intercourse (due to admin, due to parents, due to your own worries about age) is something you will have to gauge yourself. BUT, if nothing else, start with a deep examination of the violence infused language you used to describe your game. In your search for alternatives, your players will see you modeling a shift they can copy.
Coach Prompts
What violence-infused language is normalized in your program without anyone questioning it?
Are there terms in your team space that unintentionally reinforce harmful ideas about dominance, gender, or worth?
If you changed one piece of language tomorrow, what would it be and how would you explain the “why” to players?
Player Prompts
What words or phrases do athletes use so often that nobody even thinks about what they mean anymore?
Have you ever heard language around sports or relationships that felt normal at first but weird once you stopped to think about it?
What’s one phrase you think your team should retire and replace?
Critical Listening Is A Skill
Today’s blog is meant to be a direct rollout with your players. (And if I’m being honest…with you and your coaches first.)
Click on the image above of influencer Vic Mensa’s latest X post and go to the 42-second mark. Hit play. Sit and listen. Then watch it again — this time writing down notes about lines you hear that sound like TeamsOfMen material.
Then watch it one more time (three total now) and write down the lines that sit with YOUR SOUL. Discuss as a staff. When you’re done, rinse and repeat that exact flow with your team.
For me, I honed in on:
“We was all raised in a culture of abuse and misogyny…”
…and…
“Many of us adopted that willingly, wholeheartedly. But we don’t have to be stuck there. We can — we NEED to grow.”
If NOTHING else comes from this, at the very least, you’ve given your players a rep in critical listening and viewing. In 2026, they probably scroll past hundreds of mini speeches like this every week. It’s important we train their ears to identify not only symmetry with what someone is saying, but also places of pushback, tension, and disagreement.
Curiosity is a SUPER POWER after all.
Coach Prompts
What line from the clip sounded most like something your program claims to believe?
Where did you feel tension, disagreement, or discomfort while listening?
Are you intentionally teaching players how to critically engage with content…or just hoping they will?
Player Prompts
What line from the video stuck with you the most and why?
What part of the message did you agree with? What part challenged you?
What messages about men and relationships have you “adopted willingly” without ever really questioning?
The Team Room Test
Sometimes the content I share and frame here in the 30 Seconds blog lends itself to a long-form critique. Sometimes the content enrages me. Sometimes it motivates me.
Today’s left me WONDERING.
I wonder what the response percentages would look like in our team rooms if we put this graphic up -alongside a PollEverywhere type anonymous feedback mechanism- and asked “Have you seen these type of accounts in your feed” and “Do you follow accounts like this”.
I wonder what level of shock would hit coaching staff’s around the country when those percentages came back and they recognized just how immersed their guys’ daily scrolls are with this stuff.
I wonder how many coaches can self reflect on their own leadership style with things like “when shame is used as motivation” or “when masculinity is defined by dominance”.
I wonder how many players would connect the dots between experiencing their athletic eco systems and how often they “have their self worth defined only by…status” or “when you leave feeling angrier than before”.
I wonder how many conversations in the locker room of your program have “dating framed as a power game” or “women being positioned as the problem” in your male athletes lives.
And honestly?
What I suspect the answers to these five “wonders” might reveal makes me more resolute than ever in continuing to push for TeamsOfMen in every team room across the country.
Coach Prompts
If players answered anonymously, how much manosphere or rage-based content do you think would show up in your locker room?
Which “red flag” on this graphic is most normalized in sports spaces?
Are there ways your coaching environment unintentionally reinforces shame, dominance, or status-based worth?
Player Prompts
What kind of male influencer content shows up in your feed most often?
How does certain content leave you feeling after consuming it: more connected, more thoughtful…or angrier?
What messages about women, power, and masculinity are young men repeatedly absorbing online?
Untethering Tough Guys
MMA is not my jam. I don’t watch UFC. That being said, Dana White is someone I’m aware of.
But Dana White is not someone I look up to or look forward to hearing from. Add in the context that this conversation took place on Katie Miller’s podcast and I’m honestly surprised I even pressed play on it. (Miller, of course, is the wife of current Trump administration operative Stephen Miller, an overt racist white nationalist.)
This conversation is full of Manbox-infused thinking and you’ll recognize a number of familiar tropes from White’s mini-rant about “men’s mental health culture”:
“I hate this mental health bullshit.”
“You’re the man, the provider, you are the one who takes care of your family.”
“[Soft] is unattractive to other males, let alone women.”
These quotes — complete with Miller snickering in the background — are a testimony to the fight we face untethering “tough guys” from the Manbox.
White, the epitome of “tough” to millions of UFC fans, is parroting the usual rigid beliefs about masculinity while simultaneously appearing completely unaware that he is supporting the idea that men are constantly performing for the approval of OTHER MEN.
That dichotomy is what makes all of this so perilous.
In order to “be a real man,” you have to dance for other “real men,” who are in turn performing for you, all while the stakes keep escalating for what the man-badge-earning deed of the day is. It’s a vicious cycle. And eventually you get someone like White claiming that admitting “today was a bad day” is not only weak, but unattractive.
Huh?
What’s the capper in all this? He says, “You are the example for your kids.”
And he couldn’t be more right about that.
The issue is that what he models — and what so many men believe they should model too — is harmful for both the boys and girls we are raising.
Coach Prompts
How often do boys and men perform toughness primarily to avoid judgment from other men?
What messages about vulnerability are reinforced in your team spaces without anyone explicitly saying them?
When athletes hear “be a man,” what behaviors are actually being rewarded?
Player Prompts
Have you ever felt pressure to act tougher, colder, or less emotional around other boys?
Why do you think vulnerability is often mocked more by men than by women?
What kind of man do you want younger kids watching you become?
“She Not Gonna Let You Hit”
I love JAAM pod. But before you click the clip above, especially if you're an older coach, you need to prep yourself for the language. Lots of soft “a” n-words and f bombs used by the hosts.
But I’m going to be fully transparent: the dipshittery they address sometimes requires real ire and rage.
In this episode, the group is clapping back at the comments their podcast episode defending Megan Thee Stallion garnered after NBA star Klay Thompson cheated on her and ended their relationship. As the hosts share, many men decided the only reason another man would defend a woman is because he wanted to sleep with her. Hence the flood of “she not gonna let you hit” comments in their mentions.
I promise you, your players in your locker room have used that exact phrase or one of the thousand versions of it. And as the hosts so deftly point out, that mindset is rooted in a misogynistic belief that the only reason to be kind to a woman is to find a way into her pants.
“It’s literally coded language…you’re saying there is no legitimate reason for you to be defending this woman right now unless you wanted to have sex with them.”
Then they land on a touchy but painfully accurate point: too many men are “too porned out.”
“…they actually don’t think about things in the logical response, because bro, you don’t go outside. Literally.”
Sit with that for a second.
Many of your young men are being introduced to sex, relationships, women, power, and intimacy primarily through porn on their phones. Not parents. Not coaches. Not healthy conversations. Porn. And the sheer terror that should elicit in all of us is not being talked about enough.
I’ll let you engage with the rest of the clip as is, but honestly, even if you just texted this to your team group chat, there’s tremendous value in presenting a counterbalance to the nonsense takes flooding young men’s feeds every day.
Especially the ones blaming Megan Thee Stallion for Klay Thompson’s inability to stay faithful.
Coach Prompts
What phrases get said in your locker room that are dismissed as “just jokes” but actually reveal deeper beliefs about women?
If porn is the loudest teacher in your players’ lives about sex and relationships, what counterbalance are you intentionally providing?
Are your athletes learning that empathy toward women is human…or transactional?
Player Prompts
Have you ever heard someone get mocked for defending a woman online or in person? Why do you think that happens?
What messages about women and relationships do boys absorb from social media, porn, memes, and group chats?
What would it look like to treat women as people instead of status symbols, punchlines, or access points?
When Empathy Becomes Protection
This (from Patriots QB Drake Maye) proves something to me that I think many fundamentally misunderstand about men:
We DO know how to show up for people.
In moments of grief, crisis, heartbreak, or collapse, men are often very aware that community matters. We know how to rally. We know how to read a room. We know when somebody is hurting and needs support around them.
And the fact we DO KNOW makes it even more maddening, more infuriating that Maye (and I’m assuming his teammates because he uses the word “we” here so much) decided to these empathy skills to help their Head Coach Mike Vrabel.
“But Kip, you’re the TeamsOfMen guy. You’re the coach who wants everyone to feel all the feels and embrace compassion..you know, all that soft shit you peddle”.
Yeah, I am. And I’m also the guy versed in the bullshit men like to use. I’m the guy who recognizes when nuance and a little critical thinking is needed alongside emotional fluency to ascertain that my coach being (allegedly) involved in a multi year extramarital affair with an NFL reporter is not a “circle the wagon” moment. We don’t need “all hands on deck” when coach has been cheating on his wife.
Why aren’t they coming together to say “We want coach to do what he’s always preached to us and take care of his family first. However long it takes to get right with his family and the people he hurt most, he needs to do that and I hope he does.”
Why aren’t they making statements like “Well, it serves as a reminder how quickly the best part of your life can be sabotaged by your own selfish, short sighted choices. We’ll learn from him.” A bridge too far apparently. I mean look at this from Patriots season ticket holders:
Is he returning from combat? Did he beat cancer for the third time? No. He got caught cheating on his wife and the mother of his children. And THIS, THIS is where we all want to use our empathy? This, amongst all the ills of the world, the suffering of innocents, this is where the Patriots players and fans plant their flag and say “We got you?”
It’s disgusting. It’s at best misguided, and at worst intentionally rallying around an event you hope to get the same grace for causing yourself in the future. It’s shades of DARVO & JADE wrapped around a veneer of gridiron god worship. Yes, everyone fails at some point in life. Yes, everyone deserves grace going through the process of accountability and restoration. But, the man gave a written for him statement, went to a day’s worth of counseling and now needs to be welcomed back like the messiah?
This should matters to coaches sports. Players are always watching what gets defended, what gets minimized, and what the adults around them rush to protect.
And right now, the message feels pretty clear:
If you win enough games and carry enough status, people will work a hell of a lot harder to restore your comfort than confront your behavior.
Coach Prompts
When does supporting someone cross into protecting them from accountability?
What messages do players receive when adults excuse harmful behavior from powerful men?
How do you respond differently when the person who messed up is someone respected or successful?
What responsibility do coaches have to name harm honestly, even when it involves someone they admire?
Player Prompts
What does it actually mean to “have someone’s back”?
What do athletes learn when famous or powerful people avoid consequences?
How would you want people to respond if your actions hurt others?
Why do you think men sometimes defend each other so quickly in situations like this?
What We Laugh At Matters
A former assistant coach of mine is now a stand-up comic. He’s hilarious and I scroll his stuff enough, it seems, for the Instagram algorithm to populate my feed with other comics as well. THIS post showed up over the weekend and I had to read the entire scroll and share with you all here. Long story short, the comedian @amybethberry tracked 10 nights of stand up shows in Austin and took notes on joke topics from male comics. Her takeaways are a window into not only what boys/men laugh at, but what we are still (even in the vulnerability laced space that is stand up comedy) scared to stay with emotionally.
Even in a space that markets itself as honest and vulnerable, there’s a pattern. When a joke gets close to something personal—loneliness, relationships, health, anything that requires sitting with discomfort—it often gets abandoned. Something safer takes its place. A gay joke. A racist punchline. Something sexual that pulls the room back to familiar territory.
She calls it a “Vulnerability Vanishing Act.” That phrase stuck with me.
Because I don’t just see comedy clubs when I read that. I see team rooms. I see staff offices. I hear the same words—“dick,” “faggot,” “pussy,” “jerking off”—and I see the same reaction. The room erupts, everyone piles on, and whatever was about to be said gets buried.
I’ve been part of that. I’ve contributed to it. I can land a joke when I want to, and for a long time a lot of those laughs came at the expense of someone else not measuring up to whatever standard of masculinity was floating around in the room. That realization didn’t come quickly, and it wasn’t comfortable when it did.
Humor can be a release. It can bring people together. It can make hard environments feel lighter for a moment. But it also redirects. It can shut something down just as quickly as it opens a room up. That’s the part I keep coming back to. Not whether humor belongs, but what we’re doing with it.
When jokes consistently land on the same targets, it tells you something about the culture. It shows what’s easy, what’s accepted, and what gets avoided. So the question becomes whether that foundation is actually helping us build anything we’re proud of.
I don’t think the answer is to eliminate humor. That’s not realistic, and it probably misses the point.
But I do think it’s fair to look at the patterns.
If certain topics always get laughs, and others consistently disappear, that’s worth noticing. And if we’re serious about changing how young men show up, then we have to be willing to examine what we reward in those moments.
Even if it’s something as small as a joke.
Coach Prompts
What kinds of jokes get the biggest reactions in your team space?
What topics tend to disappear when things start to get real?
How do you respond when humor shifts toward targeting someone?
What does your team’s humor say about what’s accepted?
Player Prompts
What do you and your teammates usually joke about?
Have you noticed certain topics get avoided or shut down?
How do you react when someone becomes the target of a joke?
What kind of environment do you want to be part of?
A Moment Worth Using
Full disclosure: I, along with my Blazer fanatic sons, was cheering against Victor Wembanyama in the first round of the playoffs.
BUT, this from him yesterday was a breath of fresh air in a sports news and quotes landscape that too often feels like it’s actively working against progress in reimagining manhood. The words he chose stood out right away: burden, hide, fear, social codes. He’s naming something most players feel but rarely say out loud. At the same time, he’s doing it as someone who, physically, stands apart from almost everyone else on the court. That contrast matters. The most imposing presence in the game talking openly about emotion removes a common excuse.
What I appreciate most is the clarity in his stance. He’s not interested in carrying emotions he feels forced to suppress. That applies to how he plays and how he lives. There’s a level of ownership in that choice.
He also points directly at something a lot of us recognize but don’t always address—the way other men shape what feels acceptable. The concern about how you’ll be seen, what will be said, how quickly you might get labeled. That pressure sits underneath a lot of behavior we see in team settings.
When he mentions the feeling that you have to act a certain way, he’s getting close to something we talk about often. There are expectations, sometimes unspoken, that define what a player is supposed to look like and how he’s supposed to respond. Once those expectations take hold, it can be hard to move outside of them.
This is why moments like this matter. They give players a different reference point. Not a speech from a coach, but a current player showing another way to exist in the same space.
As a coach, this is the kind of clip you can bring into your team room without much setup. Most players will know who he is. For basketball teams, it’s an easy entry point. For others, it still lands because the message translates.
There’s value in not letting something like this pass by.
Coach Prompts
How do your players interpret emotional expression from high-level athletes?
What messages about emotions are reinforced in your program, intentionally or not?
Where do you see fear of judgment show up in your team?
How can you use moments like this to open conversation instead of just making a point?
Player Prompts
What emotions feel hardest to show around your teammates?
How much does fear of judgment affect how you act?
What does it mean to handle emotion without hiding it?
Who do you look to as an example for how to respond in tough moments?
Show Them What to Do With It
Today’s blog features a tremendous post from @mark.brackett on instagram (see above). This one fits perfectly in this space because after parents and peers, who is better positioned to model for boys what it looks like to move through the world while feeling?
Think about how often young men are on practice fields, in gyms, or in the weight room with a coach present. In those moments, whether it’s intentional or not, something is being shown about how to interact with the world while holding whatever emotion is there.
That’s the part I think gets missed.
TeamsOfMen exists, in part, to open coaches’ eyes to the fact that how they show up each day is not neutral. It’s an input. Over time, those inputs shape how young men carry themselves, how they respond, and how they understand what it means to be a man.
If you take the Mirror Training concept seriously, it doesn’t just change what you say. It starts to affect how you move. There’s a level of consistency that has to come with that. When it’s real, players feel it.
One thing I would add to Brackett’s point is that modeling alone isn’t always enough. We also have to name what’s happening while it’s happening. That can be as simple as saying out loud what you’re carrying and how you’re choosing to handle it.
I’ve tried to lean into that at times:
“Fellas, let me say up front I’m having a rough day. I’m going to do my best to not let that affect how I coach today.”
Or:
“I’m feeling the same stress and worry about what happened as you guys are. I don’t feel like screaming about layups today. How are you feeling?”
It’s not about making the moment bigger than it needs to be. It’s about making the process visible. Because if we don’t show them what to do with a feeling once it shows up, they’re going to find their own way. And we don’t always get to choose where they learn that from.
Coach Prompts
What are your players learning from how you handle your emotions day to day?
Where might your actions be contradicting what you’re asking from your team?
How often do you make your thought process visible in real time?
What would it look like to be more intentional about what you’re modeling?
Player Prompts
What have you learned about handling emotions from the adults around you?
How do you usually respond when something doesn’t go your way?
What does it look like to stay present without ignoring what you’re feeling?
Who in your life shows you how to handle difficult moments well?
The Pressure to Prove It
When you have 3 minutes today, this clip of honesty and vulnerability from former NBA player Michael Beasley is well worth your time. Yes, it is from Club Shay Shay, and from a TeamsOfMen perspective, host Shannon Sharpe is not exactly a figure we want our players taking cues with women from. That said, this clip is full of Beasley’s raw emotion about growing up black, light skinned, with green eyes and long hair, and what those traits caused him to experience from other black men.
“I grew up in Chocolate City. I was a light-skinned guy. Yeah. And my mom had barrettes in my hair, so I was like a boy and a girl. I got green eyes. “
“Because… you dark—don’t like light-skinned people. But you’re not hearing what I’m saying. Like literally, Black only matters to Black when Black is Black. The one percent minor don’t matter when a n***a got green eyes, because you think I’m better.”
I am a brown skinned, half Samoan 46 year old man. I am not black. I can only claim proximity to the experience of a black man in America, not the actual lived reality. I DO relate, though, to the idea of being “lighter” than you’re supposed to be, and to the idea that you are not “fully” what you claim to be. [NOTE: I may have mentioned this before in this space, but I’m aware of a shortcoming I carry: I am always willing to be a messenger, but that doesn’t always make me the right one. Writing on this today, I know some may see this as one of those moments. If that’s the case, I’m open to being called out on it.}
What landed with me, and perhaps with many players in your locker room, is the emotion tied to trying to find belonging while also navigating identity.
“So I was just always mad, because everybody asked me if I was a boy or a girl.”
“I see myself as you…But my whole life, you didn’t…so I just had to beat your ass.”
“So n***a, they asking me if I’m a girl, calling me white boy… I used to beat the shit out of n***as. A lot.”
I don’t know the makeup of your locker room. I don’t know which identities are represented or how they show up on your roster or your staff. I DO KNOW that I’ve heard and witnessed colorism in team spaces I been in and led. I DO KNOW that young men who display traits others deemed “feminine” or “gay” can become targets of not not just derogatory comments, but also for isolation and outright violence. These are real things. Beasley gives language to what that can feel like, and how it can shape behavior when it goes unchecked
I’m not sure there’s a clean answer here for coaches, especially if the question is “How do I avoid this in my team?” A more useful place to start might be asking how we address the beliefs that fuel it, and how we respond to the impact it has on the people who experience it.
Coach Prompts
Where have you seen players’ identity questioned, even subtly, in your team space?
What language or jokes get dismissed as normal but actually target someone’s identity?
How do you respond when a player’s behavior is rooted in something deeper than the moment?
What space do you create for players to talk about experiences that don’t fit the team’s “norm”?
How do you address both the behavior you see and the beliefs underneath it?
Player Prompts
Have you ever felt like you had to prove something about who you are just to be accepted?
What kinds of comments or labels get thrown around in your group?
How do you respond when someone is singled out for being different?
What does it feel like to not fully belong in a space that’s supposed to be your team?
What responsibility do you have when you see someone else being targeted?
The Call Is Coming From Inside the Locker Room
We have all heard the old adage “The call is coming from inside the house,” and it’s calling to mind Drew Barrymore’s character in Scream realizing the terrorizing voice on the phone was coming from inside her home. The article above—recently published by William Bigham in his university’s student newspaper and shared with me via our partners at Partnership for Male Youth—should land as that same type of chilling moment for coaches of male athletes.
With statements like “Men are taught throughout their entire athletic careers that they need to be quiet about their feelings and they are considered weak if they express vulnerability,” and “Toxic masculinity from locker room culture is a contributor to the mental health problem affecting male athletes today,” all coming from a CURRENT member “of the trenches”—as is so often assigned to line play on the gridiron—this becomes more than an opinion piece. It’s a window into the lived reality of the very spaces we oversee.
This is a clean bridge into what TeamsOfMen has long pushed toward: norm change inside locker rooms. When you pair Bigham’s perspective with the statistics he cites around U.S. college student-athlete suicides, and the documented spikes in anxiety around competition windows, the connection isn’t hard to see. There are threads running between the climate of the place athletes are supposed to call “home” and the way they end up feeling, coping, and behaving within it.
It is worth not only reading, but grappling with the way our spaces contribute to the day-to-day experience of simply being a part of our program. We love to hide behind the idea that “our cultures” of hard work and discipline are stand-alone inputs to growth. But either through naivete or willful ignorance, we ignore the climate of existing in our program. The language. The tone. The moments we let slide.
Until we as coaches embrace the idea that you can, in fact, have hardworking, successful teams without leaning on old tropes of power and dominance—courtesy of Manbox-influenced thinking—we will keep seeing these numbers and outcomes move in the wrong direction.
Coach Prompts
What language is “normal” in our space that we no longer even hear?
Where have I confused discipline with silence?
If one of my players wrote this article about our program, what would hit too close to home?
Player Prompts
What gets said in our locker room that people laugh at—but probably shouldn’t?
When was the last time you held something in because you didn’t think it would be received well here?
What would need to change for this to feel like a space where you could be more honest?
How Is “Swagger” The Priority Here?
I was pretty stunned listening to this segment from Albert Breer during an appearance on 98.5 The Sports Hub yesterday.
It was in response to a question about how the ongoing reports regarding an alleged six-year affair between Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini might affect the organization. What followed felt like a clear example of how quickly we default to protecting a version of a man we’re comfortable with, rather than dealing with the reality in front of us.
Breer’s comments leaned heavily on familiar language. He repeated versions of “I know Mike,” talked about him being a good guy at his core, someone who has done right by people. That framing shows up a lot when someone in our circle crosses a line. Proximity becomes proof. Personal experience becomes the filter for what we’re willing to believe. We’ve seen that same logic used to soften or dismiss all kinds of behavior—infidelity, racism, homophobia. The pattern doesn’t really change.
What really caught me, though, was the emphasis on getting Vrabel’s “swagger” back. That being framed as the priority felt completely off. Because if we’re being honest, the bravado being described there might be part of the problem, not the solution. The belief that you can move however you want without consequence, that you’re insulated from the impact of your choices—that’s not something to rebuild. That’s something to examine.
Instead, the conversation drifted toward timelines, training schedules, and whether this would carry into the season. There was a lot of focus on football readiness.
Very little on the people affected—his wife, his children.
Very little on accountability.
Very little on what actually needs to be repaired.
At one point, Breer mentioned that the players would have his back. That assumption deserves a pause. Not because support is wrong, but because it raises the question of what kind of support we’re talking about. Is it support that helps someone face what they’ve done and grow from it, or is it the kind that helps them move past it without really addressing it? Those are not the same thing.
What stood out most in all of this is how narrow the lens can become when everything is viewed through a football context. The situation gets reduced to impact on the team, on the season, on performance. But this isn’t just a football issue. There are real people involved. Real relationships. Real consequences that extend well beyond a facility or a schedule. That part can’t be brushed aside in favor of getting someone back to a version of themselves that feels more comfortable to everyone else.
Moments like this are a reminder of how easy it is to slip into defending instead of reflecting.
Coach Prompts
When someone in your circle messes up, what’s your first instinct—protect or confront?
How do you separate who someone has been from what they’ve done?
What does real accountability look like in your program?
Where have you seen performance prioritized over people?
Player Prompts
What does it mean to have someone’s back in a tough situation?
How do you respond when someone you respect makes a bad decision?
What’s the difference between defending someone and helping them grow?
What kind of teammate do you want to be in moments like that?
Let Them Have the Moment
I chose this one today to bring a little bit of light into the conversation.
Watching Keldon Johnson be surprised by his teammates after winning Sixth Man of the Year is the kind of moment that sticks with you. The reaction, the energy, the way the group shows up for him—it’s a clear example of men expressing joy and appreciation for one another in a way that feels real.
NBA rosters span a wide age range, from teenagers to veterans in their late 30s or early 40s. In a lot of ways, they are exactly what we talk about in this work: teams of men. They’re operating at the highest level of their profession, with all the visibility and pressure that comes with it. Every moment is magnified, whether they want it to be or not.
That’s why this kind of clip matters.
It shows a version of connection that doesn’t always get the same attention. Teammates celebrating one another without hesitation. A player allowing himself to receive that moment instead of brushing it off or immediately moving on to what’s next.
In a time where so much messaging pushes the idea of constant grind and the next goal, it’s refreshing to see someone pause and actually enjoy what just happened, surrounded by people who are genuinely happy for him.
There’s something in that for all of us.
Men are capable of this kind of presence, this kind of support. It doesn’t have to be reserved for big stages or award announcements. In coaching, we talk all the time about reinforcing what we want to see more of. Moments like this give us something worth pointing to. Not as an exception, but as a standard we can continue to build toward.
Coach Prompts
How often do you create space for players to celebrate each other without redirecting to the next task?
What does authentic support look like in your program?
Are players comfortable receiving praise, or do they deflect it?
Player Prompts
Are you comfortable celebrating someone else without comparison?
What does it feel like to be recognized by your group?
Do you allow yourself to enjoy your own accomplishments?
Where Music and Sports Sound the Same (and Why We Need Both to Change)
I’m not going to claim in today’s blog that every player on your roster is a fan of Toosii. I would imagine his name is at least known in your team space, and any time we can use something that already lives in their world to frame a conversation, it’s worth considering.
What struck me about this post (and let’s, as always in 2026, acknowledge this is an alleged quote) is how it stands on its own. It doesn’t need much added to it or reworked to make a point land.
The message is simple: stop using “gay,” “fag,” or “faggot” as insults. He talks about wanting to create a world where his son doesn’t have to ask him about that language.
That matters.
Because we know those words still show up in the spaces we coach in. They’re used in frustration, in competition, sometimes without a second thought. Add in “bitch” or “hoe,” and you start to see how common it is for players to reach for language that’s meant to tear someone else down.
It’s worth asking what those spaces could feel like without it.
Not just from the perspective of someone watching from the stands, but from the standpoint of the athletes who have to exist in that environment every day. There’s an opportunity here that goes beyond correcting a word in the moment. It’s about what we are allowing to be normal.
And whether we’re willing to help build something different with the group in front of us.
Coach Prompts
What language shows up most often in emotional moments with your team?
How do you address slurs or degrading terms when they happen?
What have you allowed to continue because it feels “normal” in sports?
What would it take to shift the language in your program?
Player Prompts
What words do you use when you’re frustrated or trying to get at someone?
Where did you learn that language?
How does it affect the people around you, even if you don’t mean it that way?
What would it look like to compete without tearing someone down?
This Is What They’re Swimming In
In one way or another, you were probably made aware over the weekend of CNN’s undercover report on what they are calling “online rape academies,” which were visited 62 million times in just one month.
If you don’t have time to read the full report, here’s the best attempt to summarize what’s being uncovered:
A recent investigation revealed a sprawling international network where men trade detailed tutorials on how to drug, manipulate, and sexually assault women. These communities operate in hidden digital spaces and treat sexual violence like a skill to be learned, offering step-by-step guidance while also sharing ways to avoid detection. The reporting was sparked in part by the trial of Dominique Pelicot in France, which showed how these forums are not just theoretical spaces, but connected directly to real-world harm.
Why should this matter to you as a coach of male athletes? Because this is the environment our young men are growing up in. Even if you believe the best about the guys in your locker room—and I do too—this at minimum shows what they are surrounded by. It reinforces something we’ve said for a long time in this work: if we are not consistent, intentional sources of interruption, the echo chamber of society will bathe them in manbox ideology.
You could push back and say, “62 million views doesn’t mean 62 million men.”
That’s true.
But it also becomes a familiar deflection. The focus shifts away from what is actually happening and onto a numbers debate that doesn’t change the reality of the behavior. I could ask what number would make it serious enough, or what it says about repeated visits to spaces like this, but that conversation usually doesn’t go anywhere useful. At some point, we have to stop negotiating with the existence of the problem. What matters is whether we are willing to face it. That means accepting the environment our players are navigating and recognizing the influence we have within it.
Coaches are not bystanders here. We have daily access, language that carries weight, and a setting where beliefs get shaped and reinforced. That’s where the responsibility sits. This has always been the core of the work with TeamsOfMen, and it’s not changing.
“Not all men” doesn’t move anything forward. “None of our men” is a better place to start.
Coach Prompts
What messages about women and power are your players exposed to outside your program?
How often are you intentionally interrupting harmful narratives versus assuming players will “figure it out”?
Where have you seen deflection show up when these topics are brought up?
What responsibility comes with the daily access you have to your players?
Player Prompts
What kind of content about women and relationships shows up in your feeds?
How do those messages influence what you think is normal?
What responsibility do you have when you see harmful behavior being normalized?
What kind of teammate do you want to be in moments where something isn’t right?
Safe for Who?
Today’s blog comes from a post by @responsive_parenting that made me stop and sit with something I’ve wrestled with for a while. The phrase in the post is simple, but it carries weight: “I’m not a safe place for your racism.”
It pushed me into a tension that shows up a lot in this work.
We talk often about creating “safe spaces” as a way to combat racism, misogyny, and other forms of harm. The intention makes sense. People need environments where they feel seen, respected, and protected. At the same time, I struggle to point to many examples where a heavily controlled or overly cautious space actually led to meaningful growth. In my experience, change usually comes with some level of discomfort.
In coaching, we already build environments that are supposed to matter. We hang signs, we name our spaces, we talk about the team room as a home. That language carries responsibility whether we say it out loud or not. So it makes me wonder what we really mean when we call a space “home.” Because if it is, then it can’t just be about comfort. It has to come with expectations for how people treat one another.
That’s where this idea shifted for me.
Instead of focusing only on whether a space feels safe, what if we were clearer about what it refuses to hold?
A team room that doesn’t allow racism.
A locker room that doesn’t tolerate misogyny.
Not as a slogan, but as a lived boundary. That doesn’t mean people aren’t welcome. It means certain behaviors and ways of thinking don’t get to stay unchecked once you step inside.
I think a lot of us hesitate right there. We start thinking about the reactions that could follow. A parent who pushes back. A conversation with administration. The possibility that taking a stand creates more problems than it solves.
Those concerns are real. Coaching doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
But it does raise a harder question that’s difficult to ignore. If we avoid setting a clear line in the one space we actually have influence over, what are we protecting? For some, the answer might be job security or avoiding conflict. I understand that. At the same time, there’s a cost to letting harmful behavior pass through a space that is supposed to develop young people. There’s also something to be learned about a program or an institution that won’t support you when that line is drawn. That kind of clarity isn’t always comfortable, but it matters.
This isn’t about creating a perfect environment. It’s about being honest about what belongs in the space and what doesn’t.
And then being willing to stand on it.
Coach Prompts
What expectations in your team room are clearly stated, and which ones are assumed?
Where have you held back from addressing something because of potential backlash?
How would you explain the difference between welcoming people and allowing harmful behavior?
Player Prompts
What does it mean to share a space with others in a respectful way?
Have you ever brought language or behavior into a group that didn’t belong there?
How do you respond when someone calls out something you said or did?
When Good Work Gets Run Through the Manbox
Today’s blog is both a share of a must-follow voice in the work of reimagining manhood and an examination of how easily that work can be distorted by manbox-influenced thinking.
If you are not already following @mrjasonowilson on instagram, he is essential viewing.
The clip begins with about 30 seconds of Wilson’s work with a young boy on the martial arts mat. Much of his work lives in that space on social media, where he has transformed the mat into something far bigger than a training surface. It becomes a sanctuary, a place where physical discipline serves as a vehicle for emotional stability, proving that a man’s power is measured by his ability to govern his heart as skillfully as he governs his hands.
Then the clip gets interrupted.
Trey Tucker, while promoting his own book, appears to believe his work is aligned with Wilson’s. But almost immediately, the analysis gets flooded with manbox script language. Statements like “boys don’t need to talk it out,” “this is exposure therapy,” “purposely triggering fight or flight,” “aim emotions,” and “his power is built through resistance” start to take over the frame. And that’s where this becomes maddening.
Because woven into the commentary are a few decent reframes — the idea that men often train their bodies while neglecting their emotional world, and the truth that every boy deserves to be fathered. Those are worthwhile thoughts. But that does not give any of us — and I include myself in this — the right to interpret, repurpose, or frankly bastardize Wilson’s work to fit our own preferred masculinity script.
This clip is a glaring example of that.
It takes something deeply intentional and re-routes it through the old language of toughness, resistance, and emotional suppression. That is not what Wilson is doing. He is not training boys to override emotion. He is teaching them how to move through it without being ruled by it. There’s a massive difference.
It’s the difference between emotional fluency and emotional armor.
Coach Prompts
Where have you seen emotional growth reframed as “mental toughness” in ways that actually erase the emotional work?
How do you distinguish resilience from suppression in your team room?
When players hear “be strong,” what do they think that means?
Player Prompts
What’s the difference between controlling your emotions and ignoring them?
When have you been told to “toughen up” instead of being helped understand what you were feeling?
What makes someone truly strong in a hard moment?
Breadcrumbs to the Truth
Today’s blog is a spot-on example of what my colleague @Professor_Neil calls “using cognitive dissonance” to disrupt manosphere-influenced thinking.
This clip comes from a conversation between former NFL quarterback Cam Newton and Demetri Wiley (posted by Forrest Laurent). If that feels like a roundabout way of getting to the source, welcome to trying to properly cite people’s work in the era of social media.
The clip is gold for any coach trying to understand how questions can move us closer to truth behind what motivates our guys actions and beliefs..
Wiley asks Newton why he doesn’t have any female friends, and what follows is such a clear example of how the right questions can expose the stories we tell ourselves. As Laurent points out so deftly later in the clip, what gets uncovered is often less “truth” and more the excuses we use to avoid ownership.
One of the most powerful moments comes when Wiley asks, “What that mean?” and then follows with, “When you’re attracted, what then happens?”
Cam’s answer: “Sex.”
Then Wiley responds, “Oh, damn Cam.”
That moment hits because in that second, the questioner fully realizes what has just been unearthed, while the person answering seems almost oblivious to what he has just admitted about himself.
I think a lot of our players would hear Cam in this moment and immediately respond with, “He’s just keeping it real, Coach,” or “That’s facts.”
And that’s exactly why the questioning matters because if we simply jump straight to Laurent’s later point about manipulation being disguised as virtue, I don’t think it lands nearly as well. The breadcrumbs matter. The interrogation matters.
Young men often need to hear how one assumption leads to the next until the logic collapses under its own weight. Because if the script becomes, “Well, if she’s attractive, I’ve got to sleep with her — that’s just nature,” then what we’re really confronting is not nature at all, but a learned excuse system that protects harmful thinking from scrutiny.
That’s where coaches have to step in. Not always with the answer. Sometimes with the next question.
Coach Prompts
Where in your team room do players use “that’s just how guys are” as a shield from ownership?
What questions could you ask instead of immediately correcting the statement?
When have you seen “keeping it real” actually mask harmful assumptions?
Player Prompts
What beliefs about attraction, women, or masculinity have you accepted without ever questioning?
Have you ever defended something as “just nature” that was really learned from peers, media, or culture?
What happens when someone keeps asking you why?
What Happens When Boys Don’t Trust the Data?
Today’s blog comes out of an anecdotal observation from engaging with young men last week.
In one of our Positive Masculinity Club sessions, we posed a simple question to the room: Are you moved by statistics? In other words, if I give you numbers that support a claim in any realm, does that help you believe it?
The answer in the room was a pretty resounding no.
What followed was a general distrust of math itself, and that sat with me for the rest of the day. I won’t pretend this is representative of all young men in the country. It’s one room, one moment, one set of voices. But it raised something that feels bigger than that particular session.
In the hats I wear — coach, educator, father, facilitator — numbers often serve as validation. Sometimes they confirm what I already believe. Other times they force me to change my mind. Either way, the point is that the data has a chance to move me.
Math be mathing.
It is, in so many ways, a universal language. So what do we do if boys don’t believe numbers they don’t like? Because this isn’t just about academic trust in statistics. This spills directly into coaching. If a quarterback doesn’t believe his touchdown-to-interception ratio tells the truth about decision-making, where do you go next?If a player refuses to believe the plus-minus, the shot chart, the turnover numbers, or the film breakdown, what are you actually dealing with?
I’m not sure the issue is math.
I think the issue may be what the numbers threaten.
Sometimes stats don’t just communicate performance. They challenge identity. They tell a young man something about himself that he may not be ready to hold. That he’s not as efficient as he thinks. That his shot selection hurts the team. That his effort comes and goes. That his version of himself and the evidence on the page are not aligned.
And when that gap shows up, disbelief can become self-protection.
So maybe the work is not simply convincing boys that stats don’t lie.
Maybe the work is helping them understand that changing your belief in light of valid information is not weakness. It is growth. It is what development actually requires.
I did a brief search to see if there is research specifically on young men’s distrust of numerical evidence, and while there is plenty on declines in educational outcomes and male participation rates, I didn’t find much that directly speaks to this exact question. I’m going to keep digging.
But for coaches reading this, I’d love your thoughts on when the numbers don’t move your athlete, where do you turn next?
Coach Prompts
When do your players resist what the numbers are telling them?
What part of their identity feels challenged by the data?
What other tools do you use when stats alone don’t create movement?
Player Prompts
Have you ever rejected feedback because it didn’t match how you saw yourself?
What feels harder: being wrong or changing your mind?
How do you know when numbers are helping you grow?
Platform, Volume, and the Performance of Certainty
This is the second weekend in a row I’ve found myself moved to write out my angst from something happening that I just couldn’t process without the keyboard.
Last week it was Geno Auriemma’s meltdown on national television. Today it’s a recently released sit-down on Stephen A. Smith’s “political” show Straight Shooter, this time interviewing one of my favorite follows, Joshua Doss (@doss.discourse on Instagram).
A colleague of mine who works in gender violence prevention sent me some Doss clips a year or so ago, and since then he’s been good for at least two or three posts a month that feed my appetite for both more Black and Brown men giving a damn and nuanced data breakdowns on topics I care deeply about. So naturally, I was excited to see him invited onto the bombastic SAS show.
Full context: in his previous life as an up-and-coming beat writer in Philadelphia covering Allen Iverson and during his first stint at ESPN, I was a big fan of Stephen A. Since then, with his transformation into the tent-pole “I have an opinion on everything” voice and face of the network, I do not consume much of his content. He is too proudly confident that he doesn’t have much left to learn on any topic, from sports to politics, and his debate-shouting style has become the norm in discourse everywhere.
In many ways, he represents Manbox culture dressed up in a suit. He is willing to talk about anything at a surface level, willing to shout about it, and because he makes a lot of money doing that, he seems to have decided it is his intellect — not his volume and company privilege — that makes him important in the world.
I won’t try to dissect all aspects of their conversation. Instead, I want to focus on a very specific back-and-forth around the 45-minute mark.
Doss was his usual intentional, measured, precise self. SAS was, well, loud.
Doss was probably too quick to launch his pushbacks with disclaimers like, “I agree here,” or “I can see why you’d think that,” but when you appear on someone else’s show, it’s probably a requirement to placate that person just enough to maintain access to the space and maybe move the needle, even a little.
Smith, for his part, kept paying homage to Doss as a “quantitative and qualitative data expert,” but for some reason didn’t want to give Joshua his bona fides as a representative political and gender-equity voice.
That framing aside, I’ll let you find and watch the entire discourse, though I hesitate to lend more views to SAS numbers, lest we encourage more ridiculous lines like, “Let me state for the record, you should have a damn ID… To the progressive left, shut the hell up,” along with his predictable assault on “wokeness” and his championing of the MAGA-favorite bootstrap mythology around wealth accumulation.
The moment I want to hone in on came after Doss challenged him to recognize that his buddying up to Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and others was problematic because those voices have long functioned as mouthpieces for white conservatism, a force that has historically physically harmed Black people.
SAS then launched into the tirade in the graphic below. I had to stop the playback numerous times just to scream into the ether.
Why?
Because I do not accept his premise from the start.
I do not accept the idea that because the “voice of the Republican base” selected the monster that is Donald Trump, they are somehow a better landing spot for Black and Brown bodies to have their voices heard.
Trump is a known racist. People selecting him is not evidence of representation. It is a huge blinking sign to run from that group of people if you are a body of culture.
His brazen approach to the topic, complete with the bluster and the “I’m so taken aback by this affront to my character” mannerisms, is a classic Manbox script. It teaches that biggest and loudest is always better than measured and tactical. It also allows him to skate past lines like “it’s on record” or “don’t get me started on that” while never actually stating what that is.
Notice: I’m not here defending Democrats.
They are a mess themselves. They have proven feckless in the face of the authoritarian takeover of our federal government, and I refuse to cape for them.
But for Smith to tell us on one hand he’s “not here to settle for the binary at the polls,” while then doing only enough historical diving to utter phrases like “Dixiecrats” and “Oprah had him on her show,” is just another version of what allows him on First Take to give us one sentence on LeBron James and then pivot to something about Lewis Hamilton in the next block.
He is a willing messenger on everything, but rarely the right messenger on anything.
I purposely paused before Doss had a chance to respond at this point because I did not want to parrot his words in this rant. But I am hoping, when I return, to hear a more direct push on Smith than we’ve gotten thus far.
Because throughout the show Smith framed his upbringing in Queens as liberal at the polls but conservative at home, took a dig at trans kids with the “Stephen one week and Stephanie the next” line, and earlier claimed, “Hannity and I get along, just not on politics.”
That is a ridiculous claim in 2026, when nearly every societal pain point we are living through is rooted in, or worsened by, political policy and the enforcement of it.
In summary, you should watch, listen to, and follow Joshua Doss. Not just because of this episode on a blowhard’s show, but because he consistently makes you pause, reflect, and leave with a new action directive.
Once you know, you cannot go back to living as if you do not.
Take my usual work around the brainwashing of the Manbox and apply it not only to Stephen A., but to every other platformed voice in these dark times.
Coach Prompts
Where in your team room does volume get mistaken for leadership?
Think about your own communication style: when do you use certainty as a shield instead of curiosity?
What messages are your players receiving from sports media personalities about what it means to “be a man” in conflict?
Player Prompts
When someone is loud, confident, or famous, do you automatically assume they are right? Why?
What’s the difference between speaking with conviction and shutting down conversation?
Have you ever stayed quiet because someone else’s tone made it feel unsafe to push back?